TRENTON, NJ – New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy is once again leaning on the National Guard for a crisis he helped to create. Last week, he said he would deploy National Guard troops to doctor’s offices and hospitals throughout the state after hundreds or thousands of workers are on the chopping block due to his medical industry vaccine mandate.
After forcing and encouraging businesses to fire unvaccinated front-line workers, once hailed as heroes during the pandemic, Murphy said he is considering calling up the National Guard to fill those lost jobs.
This week, he did not rule out calling in the National Guard to work the New Jersey polling stations on Election Day.
Asked by New Jersey Globe Editor, David Wildstein, who was one of the Chris Christie administration appointees to be convicted during the Bridgegate scandal if he would use troops to man the polls, Murphy said it’s on the table.
In an effort to bring poll workers off of their unemployment benefits, Murphy this week raised the pay for the day to $300.
“Would we reconsider, whether it’s National Guard, raising the rate, other steps? The answer has to be yes because having a successful election and having democracy as strong as it can be is a core reality and pillar of our state and our nation. The answer is you have to leave the door open for anything to make sure we’re properly staffed,” Murphy said as early voting now creates a higher demand for poll workers. “As I mentioned earlier, this is a bipartisan reality. This is good for everybody. I don’t, frankly, care who you vote for, but we do care that you vote. We just know – think about the commons sense of – and again, I’m glad you asked this because it allows me to riff on this for a second. If you only have one day to vote versus what we now will have, which is ten days to vote, you take a lot – we were having this conversation earlier, Tammy and I and a group You take away a lot of risk – snowstorm, your train breaks down, you work Monday through Friday two jobs. There’s an enormous amount of flexibility here we’re injecting into the system, which should help everybody, Democrats, Republicans, unaffiliated voters.”